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Grey water


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Water is never wasted as a resource- it is completely renewable(except maybe water buried in plastic) But from a money perspective there is so much waste. Treated Grey water (purple tap I think.) in SA is big and used to irrigate vineyards as well as some suburbs having it for the gardens/toilet

 

There was a recent case where SA water had connected the grey water to a house instead of standard water. The people there had been drinking treated grey water for two years! They were fine.

 

Sent from my AGM A8 using Tapatalk

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Problem is water and electricity used to be a state issue that the state was responsible for supplying to it's population. That has changed in recent years somehow to becoming a federal issue. It was the states that built the dams, water needs and the power infrastructure to support that state but how easy it has become to blame the federal government for both these shortcomings.

My question is seeing as the state no longer excepts responsibility for supplying it's people these two essential utilitys, why have my state taxes not dropped to reflect this lack of previously state supplied services?.

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Water is never wasted as a resource- it is completely renewable(except maybe water buried in plastic) But from a money perspective there is so much waste. Treated Grey water (purple tap I think.) in SA is big and used to irrigate vineyards as well as some suburbs having it for the gardens/toilet

 

There was a recent case where SA water had connected the grey water to a house instead of standard water. The people there had been drinking treated grey water for two years! They were fine.

 

Sent from my AGM A8 using Tapatalk

 

It wasn't grey water it was recycled storm water from the northern wetlands. The council diverts the storm water off the roads and into the wetlands to purify it and then it is used for non drinking purposes.

The Lifestyle retirement village at Golden Grove do the same thing with their storm water.

Grey water is water from you shower, bath, washing machine, kitchen sink. Black water is from your toilet.

 

Who has experience? I hate the idea of all that water going down the drain, if at least some of it could be re-used to flush the toilets thats something...

 

The problem with using grey water in toilets is that it has soaps and other "bits" in it that will block your cistern in no time. You need an efficient filter system to remove this stuff.

Running your washing machine waste onto the garden is the easiest way to recycle some of it and it is relatively safe.

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Used to do it that way too at my last house. I often heard people say it's no good for a wachine machine pump to pump a long run but we never had problems. i did have to put an anti siphon loop in though as it was draining the machine at first.

 

The tank one was the house before so thirty years ago too.

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Doesn't cost anything to pump your washing machine water onto the grass or the vegies.

 

In Tamworth during the drought we could only use buckets for town water to keep the trees alive and only from 6pm to 8pm every second day. The washing machine water meant we could still have a small patch of grass alive for the kids to play and a vegie garden. It also meant that the fruit trees down one side of the house were taken care of so we only had to bucket water the rose gardens and fruit trees on one side of the house and on the nature strip.

 

The rest of the grass just died.

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No, it leaves a bit of fluff and stuff on it. Good in a pinch mate.

 

Im generally different to most people and this topic is no exception.

I never water my grass as it make the grass grow and I have to cut it more often.

As far as vegetables go, I've heard of those things before:)

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We're not as different as you think. I only ever kept a small patch of grass at home alive as the grandkids liked to play bocce, cricket and stuff and the poor bastards need somewhere green to play or they nag you to take them to the park. The park is very far away from the beer fridge. The backyard is relatively close.

 

As far as vegies go, i call passionfruits 'scurvy pills' if a have a piece of fruit a month i won't get scurvy. But some things like snow peas, sweet corn, beetroot and poatatoes are well worth growing, if only for the barter value for beer.

 

If you have to have a plant you may as well be able to eat it. It's as easy to water the garden with the washing water as it is to run it down the drain.

 

I had 7 varieties of apple, lemonades, oranges, mandarins, lemons, pecans, pineapple guava, blackberries, asparagus as well as a rotating vegie patch on a 1/4 acre block. I had apples growing on the nature strip. If you are planting a tree, why not plant a macca was my motto.

 

Now i live in a shed so it doesn't matter.

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We are on acreage no sewerage so the grey water and septic are different tanks in the ground. When we bought the place the grey water was pumped out the tank via a big hose straight on the ground so came out fairly quickly. We have a very slight slope so I put an IBC at the higher part and pump the grey water into it instead of on to the ground and just let it trickle out through a normal garden hose to the plants. I figure if it comes out slower and longer it might be better than coming out all in one big hit? The hose is about thirty metres long and I just move it to different plants each day.
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I think at the least we'll get one of these Bobby dazzlers on the laundry trough, with a screw on blank cap to the outside so I can do what I want with the output. Would also like them on both upstairs showers :) again with access on ground level bucket height blanked with screw caps

 

https://www.bunnings.com.au/blue-mountain-co-plumbing-50mm-grey-water-diverter_p4760075

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